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Tuesday, September 20, 2011

The New York Rangers announced their roster for tomorrow night’s preseason
opener in Albany and there are a few surprises as to who is attending.The talk this week had been that the Rangers
were going to send a very youthful team to Albany and there are certainly a number
of young players, but which NHL players making the trip is interesting.Andrew Gross over at Ranger
Rants put out the following roster:

The surprising ones making the trip would have to be Lundqvist, Girardi,
Dubinsky and Anisimov.Christensen,
Avery and Del Zotto also have NHL experience, but each of them is fighting to
make the team, so sending them is actually a benefit to them in getting another
game to make an impression.While those
guys are looking to secure their spots, future guys like McIlrath, Miller, Thomas
and McColgan are attempting to leave impressions with the coaching staff and
build towards their Junior seasons.The
main prospects with a chance to make the team are all in this game as Erixon
and Hagelin are playing with Bourque also having an outside shot.

Yesterday Andrew Gross reported that the Rangers are
interested in adding a veteran defenseman to the roster and today Katie Strang
at ESPN
NY adds a familiar name to the list of possible additions.Strang is reporting that the Rangers, along
with the Islanders, have expressed interest in Paul Mara joining their
respective clubs.Strang has the
following quote from Mara’s agent Matt Keator:

"We've
talked to both teams and they seem to be interested in him."

Bringing in a veteran is not necessarily a bad thing for those concerned with
it going away from the youth movement because not all young players are
actually ready.If Staal and Sauer are
healthy than I think the Rangers have enough in house with Erixon and Eminger
at least to fill out the third pair.If
either of those projected top 4 defenders are not ready than the Rangers could
likely use another defender without forcing Del Zotto or Valentenko into the
lineup.

Whether Paul Mara is the right guy to bring in or not is a
different conversation entirely. While Mara
is a very good presence in the locker room and has a history with Tortorella
both in Tampa Bay and New York it is unclear how much he actually has left in
the tank on the ice.The most intriguing
part of Mara for me is how good he was playing with rookie defenders on the third
pair while he was here and helping them adjust to the NHL.That piece of Mara and how he conducts
himself does intrigue me about a potential reunion with the Rangers.

The New York Rangers 2010-11 season featured a number of
players who had career years. Brian
Boyle was certainly one of those as his 21 goal, 14 assist season shattered not
only any individual season he had before, but his career totals. This summer Boyle was rewarded for this
performance with a three-year, $5.1 million deal. The length of the deal was somewhat surprising
because of the vast disparity between the Boyle of last season with the rest of
his career.

Along with the differential between last season and the rest
of his career was the disparity between his first half and second half
performance. During the first half Boyle
had 18 goals and 9 assists in 52 games while hitting the wall and only
recording 3 goals and 5 assists in the final 30 games. That decline made expectations for Boyle’s
contract to be one of a short length to make him “prove” that there was no
fluke in his early season performance.
The Boyle contract was the only one that received anything other than
rave reviews for GM Glen Sather amongst the numerous important contracts the
organization had this summer.

If the first few days of training camp are any indication of
the version of Brian Boyle that the New York Rangers are going to get for this
contract, then Glen Sather is going to be made to look like a genius. In the first two days of scrimmages Boyle has
been a dominant force and his offensive form of the first half of last season
has been on display with three goals.
Offense is not the most critical component of Boyle will bring to the
Rangers, but to justify his contract there will need to be a decent amount of
contributions from him. Having a player
like Boyle who can provide upwards of 20 goals from a third or fourth line spot
along with the tremendous defensive work he will bring the team is a huge
advantage for the Rangers.

The most encouraging thing about the early camp reports is
that it shows the hard work that Boyle put in last summer in order to allow him
to have his breakout season was put in once again instead of resting on what
was accomplished. Though that should not
be all that surprising because just about all reports concerning this team are
of that variety in that they understand the goals of the team and each
individual is willing to do whatever it takes to get the team to that
destination.